Madrid (Airport) is Cool

Weird title, eh? Well let me explain, this post is all about travel in the banking world. I bet it sounds fun to jet set to Madrid for a day, to visit Paris and to go to Dubai, all on the company tab. In my opinion it's fun, I haven't been here long enough. See in banking there is no time for fun when you travel, this isn't a real estate conference in Vegas where you can sneak off to the slots. In my experience thus far, you simply go directly to the airport from the office, fly two hours to Madrid, go straight to and then from the office and then fly home the same day, returning to the office at night of course. When you go to Dubai, things get really bad. You depart London at 9:30 at night, arrive in Dubai at 9:00AM go to meetings all day and then leave Dubai at 2AM, arriving back in London at 6:00AM, plenty of time to shower and....make it back to the office.

See before the credit crunch these sorts of things were acceptable, sitting in business class (first class for the top guys) was not so bad. Now though, the expense hammer is reigning down upon us. All analysts now need to fly economy, no matter the distance being flown. Associates can only fly business on flights over six hours in length, and under two hours even the MD's have to fly economy. It's getting worse by the day, but that's a whole other story entirely.